


Snapshots

by minijhi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Daisuga Week, M/M, Time Travel AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 01:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2209833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minijhi/pseuds/minijhi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suga is five, and Daichi is twenty-seven, when they meet for the first time in this reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> daisuga week Day 5 : First Time/ Travel
> 
> So I saw this prompt and my mind sometimes jumps to conclusions before I actually take in the proper sentence… presenting the accidental Daisuga week response: Time Travel AU.

When Sugawara Koushi is five-years-old, he meets Sawamura Daichi for the first time.  Daichi is twenty-seven.

If he were ten years older he might have been afraid, if he had been twenty years older he would have called the police.

Because without warning, Sawamura Daichi steps into his room, into his life, kneels down beside Suga and says, “I’m in love with you.”

But precious, sweet, five-year-old Suga merely blinks up at Daichi and says, “Okay.  I’m having a tea party, if you want to sit over there.”  So Daichi settles himself down between a stuffed rabbit and two stuffed crows, lets Suga put a party hat on his head, a plastic teacup in his hand and as Daichi sometimes says, _that is their first date_.

 

-

 

When Suga looks back at that first meeting, he asks, incredulously, “What were you thinking, oh my God, Daichi you could have been arrested—”

 

-

 

“You’re ridiculous.”  Suga says, when he is twenty-two and Daichi is twenty-two. “You time travel.”

Daichi crosses their legs at the ankles and just pours Suga more to drink.  He’s graduating soon, and Daichi had promised to show up this week, promised to try, and they’ve lucked out that they’re both the same age this time.

“Do you know, I wanted to study you?” Suga says, a little tipsy, and full of giggles as Daichi catches the glass in his hands before he can spill it from laughing.

“Do you, now?”  Daichi says, innuendo clear in his voice, and Suga chokes and bats Daichi away lightly.

“You’d be amazing to study.”  Suga insists, somehow finding it of crucial importance that Daichi acknowledge this fact.  “ _You time travel_.”

Daichi smiles at him, amused, and leans over to kiss him.

“So do you.”  Daichi says, and Suga is too caught up in the kiss to argue. “You’re in my head, everywhere, all the time.”  Daichi says, and Suga kind of wants to punch him because Daichi is a complete sap.

Instead, he just lets Daichi take him into another kiss, curling into it and yearning, breathless, happy.

“You’re ridiculous.”  He mumbles, when they finally break apart for air. He’s probably had more than too much to drink, and he’s getting upset because he knows he’s going to fall asleep, and when he wakes up, Daichi is going to be gone, and who knows when they’ll ever meet at this point, if they even ever do.

Daichi doesn’t say anything, just presses little kisses into Suga’s neck, so softly and tenderly, and Suga lets himself sink into it, emotions threatening to overwhelm him until Suga realizes, when he hears a muffled sob, that he’s already crying.

Daichi pulls back, looking horrified. “Did I hurt you? Did I?  I’m so sorry, Koushi, I didn’t mean to—” and only succeeds in making Suga cry harder.

“It’s just…”  Suga begins, and his eyes are blurring with tears. Blindly, he reaches out to Daichi and the other boy takes his hands, squeezing firmly.  It’s warm and safe and good here, and Suga doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this ever before.

“I just love you so much.”  Suga says.

Lips press against his, and hands are holding him tight, keeping him close.  “So do I.” Daichi says fiercely. “So there’s no need to cry, Koushi, there’s no need at all.”

 

-

 

When he is in his teens, Suga tries not to love Daichi so much.  In retrospect, it’s a lost cause even before he starts, but to be honest, Suga is afraid. For the longest time, every time Daichi leaves, Suga is always terrified that one day Daichi will disappear and never come back.

But despite his fears, Daichi is always there, constant in spite of the whirlwind of the whole situation.  In the public library working on a research paper on a Thursday night, he sees Daichi come in to return some books and they both stare at each other.  One summer, when he’s working as a barista, a much older Daichi comes in with a briefcase and suit, sees sixteen-year-old Suga and his whole demeanor lights up.

Sometimes during volleyball practices, or even matches, he looks into the crowd and sees Daichi standing there, cheering, and “I came to see you.”  Daichi says. “I missed you.”

Gradually, out of the blue is okay, and Suga accustoms himself to it.  Daichi isn’t always there, but he knows they’ll always end up here, together.

Sometimes, when they fall asleep at night, Suga wraps his arms and legs around Daichi, curled up together, and he wishes that Daichi could just whisk him away:  it doesn’t matter when or where.

“Take me with you.”  Suga murmurs, and Daichi whispers, “I’ve been trying.”

 

-

 

Daichi is fourteen when he’s getting cereal and milk from the grocery store and sees a college student wearing his favourite sweater. Not just a sweater that looks like his favourite sweater, but literally his favourite sweater, the one with the torn elbow and his volleyball patch stitched over the right breast. Daichi stares.

The college student is slim and delicate, pretty, even, if Daichi would stop to think about it (and he will, later), but for the moment all he can think about is _‘why do you have that?  That’s mine, why do you—‘_

The silver-haired boy is leaning easily on the counter, talking to one of the cashiers as he pays for his groceries. The two of them look like good friends, and for some reason, Daichi is jealous.  Momentarily, the college student laughs and turns around, and the dazzling laughter in his face is immediately replaced by a surprised look of recognition when he sees Daichi.

They stare at each other for several beats.

“That’s my sweater.”  Daichi ends up saying.  The pretty face crinkles in confusion, and then a hand reaches up to grasp the material of the sweater in understanding.

“You gave it to me.”  The boy says.

Daichi frowns.  “I did not.”

“You did.”  The boy says.  Quieter, “Just not yet.”

Daichi feels time stop around them. His hands, gripping the milk carton tightly, are shaking, and beads of condensation from the carton cling to his fingertips.  The stranger takes a step towards Daichi, and involuntarily, Daichi tenses. The young man stops.

It occurs to Daichi that he’s still standing in the middle of the supermarket.  Nevermind this complete stranger who knows about Daichi’s time-traveling ability, one that only his parents know about.  Nevermind the fact that this stranger who knows about Daichi’s time-traveling ability is also wearing Daichi’s favourite sweater, claiming that Daichi had given it to him.  It’s too much.  Before the young man can say anything else, he flees, over to the next available counter and pays for his goods instead.

When he leaves the store, the college student is sitting by the bicycle racks outside the store, waiting for him.

“Would you like it back?”  the young man offers, and Daichi jumps a foot into the air. He tugs at the sweater in explanation, looking earnestly at Daichi.

 _Yes_ , Daichi thinks, _yes I would_. But the sweater looks beautiful on this stranger, sleeves tapering at his slender wrists, the dark colour bringing out the flecks of light and warmth in his eyes. 

Daichi has no memories of being coherent enough to reply, but he hears his own voice speak anyway.  “No.”  His voice says fervently.  “If I gave it to you, if I did, I must have—if I gave it to you, it’s yours.”

And the young man smiles.

It is a terrifying relief, Daichi thinks vaguely, that somewhere and sometime out there, a person like this exists, someone who knows about Daichi’s ability and can still smile at him like that, as if he’s the best thing on earth, someone whose laughter is windchimes and warmth. Who are you, Daichi thinks, _who are you?_

“Suga!”  a voice shouts, and they both turn to see some of his friends waiting for him impatiently.

“I—“  The boy named Suga pauses.  “Do you want a lift home?"

Daichi looks over at the waiting friends, and then at the Suga.  Hesitantly, he shakes his head.  “It’s fine, I live just around the block, we’ll meet again… right?”  He feels vulnerable and idiotic, acting this way in front of someone he barely even knows, but Suga only smiles and tousles his hair and then places a comforting hand on Daichi’s arm.

“Yeah, we will.  I’ll see you around then, Daichi.”

Suga is five steps away, the touch of his fingertips still lingering on Daichi’s skin when Daichi finally breaks out of his reverie.

“Wait, please wait—I don’t even—”

Suga stops and turns.  His smile is gentle.  “Sugawara Koushi.”  He says, without Daichi even having to ask.

When Daichi gets home, his sweater is still hanging in his closet.  Daichi puts it on and falls asleep thinking about Sugawara Koushi.

 

-

 

Suga time travels, himself.  Not often, not long at all and he definitely doesn’t have any of the control Daichi has over the power, if you can even call what Daichi has control.

It’s nothing fancy, no ground sweeping out from beneath his feet and white mist swirling.  He just falls asleep in the park one afternoon in between classes, and when he wakes up, he knows something is amiss.  For one, it’s suddenly fall, not summer, and Suga really isn’t dressed for this kind of weather.  Another thing—the trees in the park are all still towering above him. When he was a child, all the trees were cut down because the park was essentially becoming a forest, so this is either years into the past, or centuries into the future.

Not centuries, Suga decides.  Everything else still looks familiar. Odd, but familiar.

Running a hand through his hair, Suga looks to his side. His books are still sitting on the bench beside him and he gathers them into his arms.  He escapes out of the park into the sunshine, where the warmth is a welcome relief.  A woman is walking her dog on the street, wearing a coat that would have been in fashion—Suga frowns as he tries to figure this one out—maybe some twenty years ago?

Suga pauses for a moment to take in how ridiculously easy it is for him to accept that he’s just time travelled.  Daichi has turned the laws of the universe upside down, and Suga is okay with that, really.

As if his thoughts have summoned the boy, Suga turns and there is someone sitting in the square across the street, headphones on and reading a book.  Excited, yet cautious, he crosses the square, stopping right in front of Daichi.

Sensing a shadow above him, Daichi pulls down his headphones and looks up.

“Oh.”  Daichi says, eyes widening.

Suga smiles hesitantly, not knowing where they are at this point in the relationship.  Daichi is fifteen, maybe sixteen here, but he can’t be sure.  Sixteen-year-old Daichi is in love with Suga. The fifteen-year-old doesn’t know it yet.

“You’re Sugawara-san.”  Daichi says in a choked little voice, and Suga thinks, okay, fifteen then.

Daichi is looking at Suga, eyes filled with wonder. He’s biting down on his lip a little and Suga’s throat hitches.  Before he can stop himself, Suga finds himself speaking, words tumbling out of his mouth, open and honest, “You probably won’t understand it right now, but I’m in love with you.”

Daichi is fifteen, and Suga is seventeen, and somehow, it just so happens, that among the first few words they say to each other in either of their lifetimes—I love you is one of them.

For Daichi, this is the second time they have met, but it doesn’t feel too soon at all.  He feels like he’s been waiting a lifetime.  Since that day in the grocery store, Daichi has had his head full of Suga, jumping in and out of timelines, looking desperately, everywhere. He never thought that it would be here, in his own timeline, that Suga would come to find him.

“Why are you dressed like that?  Is it summer there?  Are you cold?”  Daichi asks, suddenly noting Suga’s summer school uniform. This Sugawara is younger than Daichi remembers, his hair a little neater, smile a touch more shy.  He’s holding his schoolbooks. College prep school, Daichi notes. So this Suga isn’t in college yet.

Their eyes lock, and slowly, for Daichi, it all falls into place.  He looks at Suga for a long moment, then down at the sweater he is wearing.

This is my favourite sweater, he thinks, but as he pulls it over Suga’s head, he knows that everything is the way that it should be.

 

-

 

The other time Suga time travels, he barely even sees Daichi.

It’s spring this time, and he’s twenty-three and he’s just gotten a job as a school teacher.  Suga wanders around, looking aimlessly for Daichi, but doesn’t find him.  So he sits by the lake and feeds a couple of ducks, watching the sun set and waiting to go home again.

He’s just about gone when he hears the sound of a child’s laughter, and someone walks past, behind him.  Suga turns, but too slowly.  He sees a woman’s retreating back, and her child running up ahead.

“Daichi, don’t run off on me!”  the woman calls, but she isn’t worried.

Neither is Suga.

Suga watches them until they disappear out of sight.

One day, Suga thinks, and the thought of it is nice. _One day._

 

-

 

Suga gets sick during the winter he turns twenty-eight. Technically, everyone gets sick during winter, but not everyone is Suga, who when he gets sick, goes all the way. In defense of the universe, it only gets this bad because Suga insists on going to work as usual, and he’s in the office, talking to one of the other teachers about an upcoming field trip, when the whole room tilts and sways.

“Sugawara-san?  Sugawara-san!"

Strong arms catch him before he hits the floor, and Suga’s last coherent thought is _I wish Daichi was here_.

 

-

 

He wakes up in his bedroom and everything is dark around him.  His whole body aches and his head feels clouded.  He makes a noise of pain as he tries to sit up, and someone comes in through the door.

“Koushi?”  a familiar voice says, but Suga can’t place his finger on it.

Suga stares at the figure through a foggy haze and scrunches up his face.  He’s mostly darkness and shadows, and Suga’s pretty sure that the last he checked, no one had keys to his apartment except for himself.

Whoever it is sits on the edge of Suga’s bed and pushes him back down, taking care to make sure Suga is comfortable, tucking corners of the blanket around him.

“I confessed to you yesterday.”  The figure says, and a cool cloth is placed on Suga’s forehead.  A hand cups his chin.  Suga sighs, pressing his face into the touch.  “You were really cute.”

Suga has no idea what the figure is talking about, but he likes the sound of his voice.  Letting the person talk, Suga closes his eyes again, and lets himself slip away.

Three or four days pass like that.  Suga figures he’s probably really sick, and he barely knows what is happening as the shadow fusses over him and feeds him and talks to him.  Suga sleeps a lot, but whenever he wakes up, the figure is there.

One night, he wakes up to a hand shaking his shoulder gently.

“Mm?”  Suga says sleepily.

“I’m about to leave.”  The figure says.  “I won’t be able to stay any longer.”

“You’re nice.”  Suga says, half-dreaming.  “I really like you.”

The figure gives a surprised laugh.  ‘Thanks.” he says.

“Where are you going?”  Suga asks, when the warmth on his arm is gone.  He wants this person to stay.  A thought strikes him.  “Are you going to where Daichi is?  Do you know him?  Will you tell him I said hi?”

There’s a kiss on his temple.  “I’ll pass on the message.”  The figure says in a low voice.

“Good.”  Suga thinks he says, or maybe he just thinks it.  Inside his head, the message vertebrates around his brain, short-circuiting.  “I really like him.  Maybe even more than you.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”  The voice says, and Suga’s relieved.  He likes them both, a lot.  But Daichi is Daichi.  It’s no competition.  He drifts off to sleep.

The next time Suga wakes up, his fever is gone and his mind is clearer than it has been for days.  Yaku Morisuke is sitting by his bedside, cutting up an apple for him.

“I got a call from your boyfriend to come look after you today.” Yaku says.  “He says he’s sorry he couldn’t stay.”

Suga’s brows furrow.  The only person he’d ever let parade around as his boyfriend is Daichi, but Daichi is years away, in no position to be making phone calls to Yaku. He’s mentioned Daichi to Yaku a few times, but they’d never met—it would be too complicated to explain.

“Boyfriend?”  Suga repeats.

Yaku laughs.  “You’re really out of it, aren’t you?  Daichi-san said you might be.  He looked after you for the worst of it, though.”

Alarm bells go off in Suga’s head.  “Daichi was here?”

Yaku feeds him an apple slice and Suga chews obediently.  “Yeah, he was. He stayed for five days. Did you really not notice?”

“Oh.  Oh, I thought—”  Suga says, as he remembers what he’d said to Daichi last night, and promptly turns bright red.

 

-

 

For some reason, Suga never sees Daichi older than thirty.

He’ll come to realize why later, but for now he’s grateful like this, with a maximum of thirty years to their age difference, zipping in and out of time frames, photo albums in a complicated mess of no one’s chronology.

At this point, Suga has been in love with Daichi for twenty-three years, and he falls easily into the belief that the rest of their lives will go on like this too.

 

-

 

He’s walking home one evening from work when he steps into a different time again.  He’s always here when he travels, this park, the square.

A small dark-haired child is snuggled at the base of the slides, playing a handheld game.  He’s perfectly aware that not every dark-haired child in an alternate timeline is Daichi, but Suga can’t help but hope anyway.

“Daichi?”  Suga says hesitantly, and the child looks up.  He’s seven, almost seven.  But he isn’t Daichi.

The boy shies back a little.  “I’m Daisuke.”  He says.

“Who?”  Suga asks.  Even though he doesn’t want to encourage children talking to strangers, there’s something about this boy that Suga’s instantly attached to.  He shakes his head, feeling ridiculous, just as the child shoots upright, sprints across the playground and jumps into familiar arms with an exuberant, “Daddy!”

Suga feels all the blood rush to his head. His heart is pounding, and Daichi pats the boy fondly on the head before putting him down.  “Daisuke, go home.  We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

The boy stares up at Suga, eyes piercing, and then obeys his father.

_His father._

If he wasn’t leaning against the slides, Suga’s sure he would have fallen.  This is why he’s never seen Daichi past the age of thirty, Suga realizes with a startling force. It’s because _they_ don't exist beyond thirty.

Daichi leans on the slide beside Suga. He lets out a long breath. “It ends, Koushi. The time traveling, it stops.”

Suga recoils.  If the time traveling stops, so does all the visits.  It means Daichi and Suga will never meet again.  Suga flinches.  What if that’s why Daichi is like this, here, with someone else? With a family?

Forced apart by time.  Grounded by the laws of the universe.

Fear beats against his chest, the pressure in his heart and soul debilitating.  His shoulders tremble uncontrollably, and Suga remembers, that before Daichi he was no one, a baby in a cradle, a child playing at tea parties all alone, and Suga doesn’t know how to live without Daichi.

But if he must—if time has deemed that they must, there is nothing Suga can do about it.  There is nothing he wants to do about it.  Daichi deserves a life where he can live without worrying about time dimensions and a partner who’s sometimes twelve, sometimes twenty-five, sometimes seven, all over the span of a week. They both deserve that.

Yanking away from Daichi with a monumental strength, Suga steels himself, whispers, “I am happy for you” and bolts. The pathway swirls in and out as he runs, the world pressing in on all sides like a cage.

“Koushi!  Koushi, stop!”  Daichi shouts, but Suga stumbles away and tries to disappear into the park.  Suga hurts, and some part of him feels like he’s dying.

He loses Daichi for maybe five minutes before the other man finds him, sitting at the edge of the lake, arms wrapped around his legs and pensively staring into the murky water.  It’s not that he thought it was a great hiding place. Suga just can’t bring himself to run much farther.

Daichi takes a seat beside Suga.  “Koushi, look at me.”  His voice still sounds so much like Daichi that it hurts. Of course it sounds like Daichi, Suga chides himself furiously.  It is him.  It’s just a Daichi who isn’t madly in love with Suga, one Suga cannot imagine.

Yet, here they are.

Suga’s eyes well with tears.  His voice is hoarse.  “I didn’t mean to come here.  I won’t impose like that, I wouldn’t, Daichi.”

They’re sitting very close for two people who aren’t supposed to be together.  Daichi leans even closer, and Suga can feel the inhale of his breath, right before he whispers, “Koushi, he’s ours.  Ours.”

Suga’s head jerks up in astonishment.

“The time traveling stops.”  Daichi repeats, and Suga just stares at him.

Seconds pass.

“Oh my God.”  Suga says, and he’s crying and Daichi’s arms are around him.

“It’s not long now, Koushi.”  Daichi promises, and when Suga wakes up back home, in his own time, his cheeks are still wet with happy tears.

 

-

 

Suga is thirty this year, and the promise that Daichi had left him with when he was twenty-five seems so far away. It’s been two months since he’s seen Daichi, and while it isn’t the longest that they’ve gone without seeing each other, that doesn’t stop Suga from being miserable anyway.

Sighing, Suga tries not to choke on the scarf around his neck.   He’s carrying a huge box of art supplies on his way to school, and the morning newspaper is still tucked under one arm, a couple of scrolled up artworks teetering precariously in between his shoulder and jaw.  It’s far from comfortable, and the roads are still wet with snow. Suga makes a face, trying to knee the box back into position.

“Here, let me help you.”  A voice calls out, and someone materializes beside him, grabbing the scrolls before he can drop everything.

Suga lets out a sigh of relief, easing the box back into place.

“Thanks—” he begins, and the rest of the words die abruptly on his lips.

Save that one time, this is the oldest he’s ever seen Daichi.  Thirty maybe. Thirty, just like Suga.   Suga feels the smile on his face widening.  It’s been a long time since they’ve met at the same age.

“Koushi?”  Daichi says, in confusion.

“Yeah, hi.  I haven’t seen you in awhile.”  Suga says, still jostling at the box.  He tiptoes to kiss Daichi lightly on the cheek.  “Can you help me?  I’m late for class.”

Daichi looks even more confused, then suddenly goes pale. “Did you travel?” Daichi asks.

“What?”  He doesn’t answer, busy trying to get Daichi to help with the box, and sighs when Daichi just stands there, arms limply by his sides.

“Daichi?”  he tries, and his boyfriend moves.  Daichi snatches the newspaper out of Suga’s grip, glances at it and then promptly sags against the hood of a nearby car, holding Suga tightly.

“What?”  Suga asks, completely bewildered now.

“I haven’t been able to travel since my birthday.” Daichi says.  “I wanted to see you so badly.  Koushi, I tried everything, I thought I’d never see you again.  Did you time travel here?”

Suga looks around him.  It’s winter.  He’s on his way to school.  Everything looks like it had looked yesterday.  He hadn’t traveled.  _He hadn’t._

It doesn’t make sense.  Something inside Suga breaks.  In a different world, having met someone by means other than time travel makes perfect sense, but that is not the world Suga is used to. Suga braces himself, knowing he’s going to wake up now.  This is as far as it gets in any of the previous dreams.

But it doesn’t come.

Daichi reaches for him again, tired lines on his face, but every feature suffused with hope and longing.  “Did you time travel here?”  Daichi repeats, and Suga knows he isn’t dreaming.

The box and the scrolls fall to the ground, but Suga doesn’t care.  Wordlessly, he looks up at Daichi and shakes his head. He swallows.

At long, long last, they’re here.  Deep down, Suga realizes he had always known it. From the day Daichi walked into his playroom and sat down with his stuffed animals, he knew that they would always, eventually end up together.

There is no cheat for this one, no one to come dropping by from the future with the right words and right answers, the promise of love and a guiding light towards happiness.

But time had given them the beginning. It starts again, here, now.

“Koushi, we’re living in the same timeline.” Daichi whispers.

This time, Suga doesn’t need to see into the future to know that everything is going to be absolutely alright.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I never realized how hard writing a time travel story would be. It's crazy getting the chronologies right. Let me know if you spot any glaring inconsistencies, at this point, I think I'm a bit too familiar with both their storylines to notice anything amiss.
> 
> Happy DaiSuga week! So happy for this prompt, even if it was kind of misread. Lol, and I pretty much encompassed all the other prompts in here too, kind of: first encounter, seasons, confession, first date, alternate universe, first time, travel and family. Huh :D


End file.
